I seized this docile moment to propose our departure from the church.  “First,” she said, “let us replace the pavement above the vault.”

We drew near to it; “Shall we look on her again?” I asked.

“I cannot,” she replied, “and, I pray you, neither do you.  We need not torture ourselves by gazing on the soulless body, while her living spirit is buried quick in our hearts, and her surpassing loveliness is so deeply carved there, that sleeping or waking she must ever be present to us.”

For a few moments, we bent in solemn silence over the open vault.  I consecrated my future life, to the embalming of her dear memory; I vowed to serve her brother and her child till death.  The convulsive sob of my companion made me break off my internal orisons.  I next dragged the stones over the entrance of the tomb, and closed the gulph that contained the life of my life.  Then, supporting my decrepid fellow-mourner, we slowly left the chapel.  I felt, as I stepped into the open air, as if I had quitted an happy nest of repose, for a dreary wilderness, a tortuous path, a bitter, joyless, hopeless pilgrimage.

CHAPTER IV.

Our escort had been directed to prepare our abode for the night at the inn, opposite the ascent to the Castle.  We could not again visit the halls and familiar chambers of our home, on a mere visit.  We had already left for ever the glades of Windsor, and all of coppice, flowery hedgerow, and murmuring stream, which gave shape and intensity to the love of our country, and the almost superstitious attachment with which we regarded native England.  It had been our intention to have called at Lucy’s dwelling in Datchet, and to have re-assured her with promises of aid and protection before we repaired to our quarters for the night.  Now, as the Countess of Windsor and I turned down the steep hill that led from the Castle, we saw the children, who had just stopped in their caravan, at the inn-door.  They had passed through Datchet without halting.  I dreaded to meet them, and to be the bearer of my tragic story, so while they were still occupied in the hurry of arrival, I suddenly left them, and through the snow and clear moon-light air, hastened along the well known road to Datchet.

Well known indeed it was.  Each cottage stood on its accustomed site, each tree wore its familiar appearance.  Habit had graven uneraseably on my memory, every turn and change of object on the road.  At a short distance beyond the Little Park, was an elm half blown down by a storm, some ten years ago; and still, with leafless snow-laden branches, it stretched across the pathway, which wound through a meadow, beside a shallow brook, whose brawling was silenced by frost—­that stile, that white gate, that hollow oak tree, which doubtless once belonged to the forest, and which now shewed in the moonlight its gaping rent; to whose fanciful appearance, tricked out by the dusk into a resemblance